What has America become? The lamp is dimming, to our detriment

By Bruce A. Beardsley

Oct 04, 2018 | 10:00 AM

Central American asylum seekers wait as U.S. Border Patrol agents take them into custody on June 12, 2018 near McAllen, Texas. (John Moore / Getty Images)

Almost a century and a half ago, Emma Lazarus penned the lines now displayed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, which end with “I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” In the intervening years, our welcome to the “tempest-tost” has ranged from generous to stingy, extending or retracting for reasons real or imagined.

This is a moment when we so drastically turning our backs on the world, we must ask: What have we become?

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Nursing infants separated from their mothers. Children warehoused in cages, then moved sans parents to tent cities. Thousands of youngsters unaccounted for after separation at the border.

Officials fumble and point fingers trying to lay the blame elsewhere. America’s human and humane dimensions seem lost. Is this who we are as a nation?

Even before American independence settlers in the New World frequently saw themselves as morally superior — residents of the “city on the hill” serving as a beacon to others. While this beacon sometimes dimmed, we usually regained our moral compass with the passage of time.

The persecution of Jews in Germany was well known before Europe exploded in 1939, even though the death camps had not yet been established. Just before combat began thousands of Jewish parents were able to send their children to safety in Great Britain and Canada. The Czech Kindertransport alone saved 669 children. These acts of hospitality by other countries are now almost universally praised — in contrast to the barriers erected then by the U.S.

After a slow start (we had other priorities), after World War II America did resettle some hundreds of thousands of refugees collected in Europe’s Displaced Persons camps. We did so while averting our eyes from refugee surges in Asia. After the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and the 1968 Czech revolt, we helped resettle many of those who fled. Not quickly. A Danish interlocutor complained to me that Denmark had housed and trained a number of them prior to their ultimate resettlement in America.

Closer to home, as Fidel Castro’s grip on Cuba tightened, thousands of Cuban youngsters came to the U.S. on the “Peter Pan” flights of the early 1960s. They came without their parents, and with no assurance of being reunited with them. While our country was (and is) at odds with Cuba politically, and we welcomed these children and integrated them into our society.

In the two decades following the Vietnam War, we resettled over a million refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I was in charge of elements of those programs, intermittently, from 1975 to 1989.

The Vietnam programs had a separate category for unaccompanied minors. We worked closely with refugee camp administrators in countries of first asylum to afford these vulnerable children special protection in the refugee camps, and the potential for rapid resettlement in the U.S. and elsewhere. Yes, we were aware of, and dealt with, attempts at misrepresentation. We also suspected that some parents may have callously risked a child’s life to provide an “anchor” for the parent’s future migration. Still, the child was now alone in a camp.

When I was with the refugee programs in Malaysia and Thailand. my duties included urging the host countries to treat all asylum seekers humanely. In that, we proudly led by example. U.S. policy then emphasized protecting minors who were at risk through no fault of their own. Now, decades later, many of those refugees who entered our country in poverty have become personally successful, greatly contributing to our country. They include doctors, teachers, senior military officers, scholars and job-creating entrepreneurs.

Today, on our southwest border, we are confronted by a similar challenge. But our response is much different, and contrary to our basic values. Rather than offering asylum seekers a cloak of protection, our government seems to purposely make their lives as harsh as possible. And at great monetary and reputational expense. Is separating families, caging children, and pressuring people to request removal, we have lost our way. The latest twist is using the pretext of investigating the suitability of a household for hosting a minor a vehicle for finding more potential deportees!

This is, alas, done to the cheers of a minority of people in America. Does it really make our nation “great”?

It is time to recognize that we as a nation face a moral question that will define or shame us for generations. Our society must not be built on fear and terror. Will those citizens who came here seeking freedom raise their voices in defense of those following in their footsteps? I hope so.

Beardsley is a retired U.S. diplomat. During his 31 years in the Foreign Service, he oversaw what were then the U.S.’s largest refugee program (in Thailand) and visa operations (in Mexico and the the Philippines).